Happy HallOOoooowEEeeeennnn........................

A Happy HallOOoooweeeenn from the house at the end of the long spooky driveway where no-one wants to trick or treat.

Winter is creeping in.

Brrrrr.........I can smell winter in the air. The past few mornings have been cold and gusty. I have had to pull out my mittens, winter coat and ear muffs in order to survive bus duty in the morning. Our wood is split and stacked and ready to insulate the house against the cold winter winds. When I came home from school yesterday there were snow flurries dancing in the air. Quite a contrast to last year at this time when we had record warmth and were still running around in shorts and short sleeves.

I like this time of year. I love the promise of snow. I like the shortened days when we can snuggle inside and the yellow lamp light makes a cozy backdrop against the wind and cold outside. I like to sit in our Belly Acres room in front of the fire and watch the leaves tumbling from the trees and blowing against the windows.

As I was shivering in the gusty 35 degree weather outside school this morning staff members would scurry past me, hunched over in the cold, and remark about how VERY C_O_L_D they were. Cold? It did feel cold but cold is all relative. There will be a day this winter when the thermometer will go "up" to 35 and we will be remarking about how warm it feels!

Goodbye Glastonbury.......Hello Hartford.

My relationship with Glastonbury began years ago. When I was in high school the Little Rapp Boy took me on my first trip to Glastonbury to visit the Harvest/Apple Festival and to meet some old friends from the town he had recently moved from.

Years later I was visiting Glastonbury again after my mother moved there, just a short distance from where the Little Rapp Boy had lived. Some things looked familiar to me even after all those years. I recognized Main Street where we had stopped to do an errand at the drug store. I recognized the street that he had lived on. Glastonbury would become my "other home" for 40 more years.

Glastonbury was where Kara first visited her Grandma.


Glastonbury was where Brett celebrated his first Christmas, sitting on his Grandpa's lap as Grandpa introduced him to the Farmer's Almanac.


My mother hosted many years of family reunions. Our family had a pretty active production line. Sometimes it seemed like every year a new cousin was added to the family tree.

We had barbques on Memorial Day, jelly bean hunts on Easter and turkey on Thanksgiving. Glastonbury is where little Kara had her first mound of mashed potatoes which she promptly gagged on because she thought it was a scoop of ice cream. The Harvest/Apple Festival that I visited as a teenager was still in existence. My mother and sisters would get together for a walk through the festival, hot dogs in the shade and a ride on the Ferris wheel. I would travel to Glastonbury to share book sales and antique shows with my mother. My father celebrated his last birthday in Glastonbury. Just as I had brought my children there to visit their grandma, my children were now bringing their children to Glastonbury to visit their great-grandma.

My mother moved from Glastonbury to Hartford this Columbus Day weekend. I went to Glastonbury this weekend to finish cleaning her apartment. I vacuumed and scrubbed the sinks. I stuck my head in the oven, gagged on oven cleaner fumes and scrubbed nasty black stuff off the oven walls, all before I realized that the oven was a self-cleaning oven.

When I was finished I looked around the quiet apartment trying to commit to memory the place I knew so well and where I had spent so much time. In my mind I could still see my mother's smiling face as I walked in the door. I smiled and closed the door on my Glastonbury years. No more would I drive through the Hartford tunnel and put my life in peril as I slid over two lanes to the Route 2 exit.

If you close one door there is always another one waiting to be opened. I closed the door in Glastonbury and then drove to Hartford and opened another door. A door to my mother's new life. A life that is different but better. A new place for me to visit. A place where my mother is already making new friends and sharing laughs with them. I can't wait to fill my life with happy new Hartford memories. What a trip it will be.

Our annual pilgrimage

Yes, last weekend we made our annual pilgrimage to Ogunquit, Maine. This is our favorite time of year to go. It feels so much different than Maine in the summer. There are less people and you have the beach to yourself (almost). Some years the weather is sunny and warm enough to go wading in the ocean. We have been there in the middle of a rainy blowing gale. The waves would lull us to sleep as they slapped against the deck of our Inn. This year the weather was sunny but it was cold with a brisk wind. But that didn't keep us from enjoying the beach and our annual walk along the Marginal Way.

Sometimes the nicest thing about being so cold is how good it feels when you come inside and get warm. At the end of our chilly Marginal Way walk along the ocean we stopped in at Barnacle Billy's for hot clam chowder and hot cocoa. There were two crackling fireplaces for us to warm our hands by. It was one of the nicest things about the whole weekend. I can't wait to do it again next year.

If you want to see our pictures you can click here and then click on The Second Maine Event to open up the album.

A gathering of the family.

The whole family met in Maine this weekend and had a wonderful, but chilly, visit. It was a great two days. More about it and more pictures tomorrow. Tonight my bed and book are calling......................

What a weekend

My blogging has taken a back seat lately to a very busy several weeks. We have been hard at work moving my mother to a very lovely assisted living facility. There have been many years of papers and belongings to sort through. It isn't a quick process. You can't pass by an old picture quickly. You need to look at it, remember it and share your thoughts about it. Oh my what a job.

Columbus Day weekend was move-in weekend. Kara and her family also came home for a visit and to take a trip to Ellsworth Farms in Sharon to pick their pumpkins. I wasn't able to spend much time with them because of the busyness in Glastonbury but from everything they told me they had a heck of a time.


Elizabeth had to bring her "Halloween teeth" so she could give Grammie a good scare!




Sunday was THE perfect fall day for picking pumpkins. The Maddens grabbed their cart and filled it with everyone's pick.


Elizabeth always has to pick a "little" pumpkin.


After the picking pumpkins and nearly getting lost forever in a 6 acre corn maze they went to the village of Cornwall to a library book sale and came home with bags of books. Oh, Grammie wished she were there. Elizabeth and Eamon spent a long time frolicking in the leaves.


Meanwhile the grown-ups were in a far-away land (not really far-away, it just seemed like it) transforming a boring little apartment..................


into something warm and cozy.


A plain bedroom became....................

a room stamped with my mother's personality.

It was a whirlwind of a weekend. When I came home on Sunday night I was so tired. As I was working during the day I kept thinking of how nice it would be to come home to a set table and the smell of dinner cooking. I've always wished for that. Paul can't deliver. But Kara can! When I walked in the door the table was set, candles were lit and the smell of baking cannoli's filled the air. Wish granted.

I was so tired the other night that I fell asleep at my computer and didn't wake up until I felt myself slide off the chair on my way to the floor. Today I fell asleep while I was working at the computer at the circulation desk. Luckily I didn't take another slide towards the floor and even more fortunate, none of the children noticed.

It was all well worth it. My mother is now in a happy and comfortable home with plenty to keep her busy. And that makes all of us happy.

Another year older....and better.

My mother was an only child. She never liked that label. She always wanted a horde of brothers and sisters. When she was little she used to beg her two aunts who raised her to let her live with the poorest family in town because they had children, lots of them. That is what she wanted. She knew that when she got married and began a family her first child would not be an only child.


I was not an only child. She made sure of that. Before I knew it I was sharing my things with 3 sisters and a brother. There were times growing up when I felt like using Jimmy Stewart's line in "It's a Wonderful Life"............"Why do we have to have all these kids?"

But she always reminded me how lucky I was. "Do you know how lucky you are to have someone to argue with over who gets the toy in the cereal box?" she used to tell us. We were lucky. We didn't have much money but we had each other. If there was someone who temporarily didn't like me I could always seek out someone who temporarily liked me. When we get together now we can each piece together our fragments of memories and come up with a complete memory. I can't imagine living my life without these special people.

Happy 87th birthday to the mother who made it her mission to make sure that I was not an only child! Thanks, Mimsy.

Can't post pictures on this blog. I don't know why. It's driving me crazy...........

What women want.

I loved Paul Newman when I was growing up. I swooned over him as a teen-ager. I loved his eyes. I thought he was sexy. As I grew older I loved his acting. "Cool Hand Luke" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" will forever occupy that corner of my brain where I tuck away my favorite things. I remember seeing Paul Newman, with sunglasses, stroll through Mencuccini's Supermarket in Torrington when he was in town trying to negotiate a sale of land for his Hole in the Wall camp. I stood in the cereal aisle and quietly watched as he strolled over to the "Newman's Own" shelf.

As I grew even older I admired him the most for his marriage. He married one woman and one woman only and stayed married to her for 50 years, an oddity in the Hollywood crowd. It is especially unusual for a man blessed with the looks of Paul Newman. He loved his wife. He respected his wife. Even more important, he respected the whole idea of marriage. When asked by Playboy why he didn't take advantage of the women flinging themselves at him (good question), He said "I have steak at home. Why go out for hamburger?" Well said. (there went my chance)

His wife...........she was a lucky woman. Not because she was married to a man who personifed sexiness and good looks, but because she was married to a man who had far more than looks and charisma. I read a quote of hers that I need to write down in my quote book. (I have a special little book where I write my favorite quotes). "Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that's a real treat." Oh all you men........listen well. Laughter and a sense of humor is what makes a marriage endure. That is what women really want. They don't want the looks and the machismo or the money (although a little money isn't a bad thing!) They just want a smile and someone who makes them laugh, especially when things aren't going well. A man with a sense of humor is a very sexy man. And many men just don't get it, do they?

The fall feeling

I can feel the season's changing. The geese have been honking overhead. The coat on the deer is turning dark. There has been a bite in the air the past few mornings and we have had an "almost" frost. The grass has been white with dew as I have driven off to work. If it had been just a few degrees cooler the dew would have been frost. The days have been brisk and breezy. The leaves are turning red. In a few weeks the trees will be bare. There is a rush to get our evening walk in before darkness takes over. We had a fire in the wood stove tonight and lit the gas stove on the porch while we ate. And, yes, I am beginning to long for snow!

The past few weeks have been busy helping my mother prepare for her move. My poor house has been neglected and looks it. The lawn and gardens are showing signs of my neglectful abuse also. But I am enjoying helping my mother get ready for her new home. I have always thought I would like a Bed and Breakfast. Not the cooking part.......heaven help me.....but the thought of decorating all those bedrooms has always appealed to me. Helping my mother get ready for her new apartment has been satisfying to my "interior decorating fetish". I love to wander through Penny's or Kohl's or Target or TJ Maxx and pick out towels and rugs etc. It's hard to stop. I want to bring her with me and pull things off the shelves asking "do you want this?" It's something that is a little easier for me to do financially now than when I was young and I am having a good time.

And now I'm going to bed and hopefully sleeping in a little bit tomorrow before I go off to look for a love seat for my mother. I just started "Pillars of the Earth". That is a big book to have to hold up in bed when you're tired.